Webcams broadcasting Gowda’s every move

Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda launches the website that will track his activities

By Sagarika Ranjan

BANGALORE (Nov. 30)—The website that will broadcast the activities of Karnataka Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda live was launched at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday in his home office, the Krishna.

Webcams have been installed at five locations: four in the Krishna and one in the Vidhana Soudha legislative assembly.

“We are doing this for transparency in governance and our interactions with the foreign delegations,” Gowda said.

The website cost Rs. 2.5 million to create and will cost Rs. 170,000 per annum to run. The chief minister made the proposal to expand e-governance himself a month ago.

The webcam footage is live and can be viewed for five minutes before it cuts off automatically. To resume watching, a user must click on the link again. There is no provision for storing the footage.

There will be no audio in the footage. M.N. Vidyashankar, principal secretary to the state government’s Technology Department, said: “These are technical issues and will be fixed in phases. We will soon provide the audio to the videos.”
The footage will soon be viewable on mobile phones.

“We are in touch with the telecom operators and people will soon be able to know the position of the CM through SMS,” Vidyashankar said.

He said a bill will to be introduced in the assembly soon that would ensure that the public has access to this service.